Anneke Jesperson
Anneke Jespersen (b. 1960; d. 1 May 1992) was the fraternal twin sister of Henrik Jespersen, and a photojournalist for the Danish newspaper Berlingske Tidende. She liked to report from war zones, having covered Iraq, Kuwait, Lebanon, Senegal and El Salvador. Her next assignment was to be Sarajevo. While covering Desert Storm she visited a cruise ship called "Saudi Princess" which was used as a rest and recreation outpost for American troops. At the time she was visiting the ship she met several men from the 237th Transportation Company of the California National Guard which was based in Modesto. She was drugged and gang raped by Francis Dowler, Carl Cosgrove, Reggie Banks, and Chris Henderson. In addition, J. J. Drummond was on the ship but not present during the rape. Following the rape she told no one what happened but decided to track down the men who raped her. In March of 1992, she spent two nights at the Schwabian Inn in Stuttgart, Germany near Patch Barracks at the U.S. Army Garrison. The barracks was the location of the army's Criminal Investigation Division and in 1992 it was the headquarters for investigating Desert Storm war crimes. It is not known whether she reported the rape to CID. She later arrived alone in the United States at John F. Kennedy International Airport on 24 April 1992 for a brief "vacation." By 29 April, she had traveled to Atlanta and San Franciso. It is not clear why she was not already in Modesto where the men she was seeking were located. When the riots broke out in Los Angeles and the National Guard was mobilized, she drove through the night to reach the city by Thursday morning. She checked into the Travelodge on Santa Monica Boulevard and then went out to look for the Guard troops. The next night, Jespersen was shot and killed by J. J. Drummond in an alley off Crenshaw Boulevard. Her murder was initially investigated by LAPD detectives Jerry Edgar and Harry Bosch. There were several puzzling things that Bosch noted. What was she doing in that alley? She appeared to have been shot execution-style at close range, ruling out a sniper. Her cameras and room key were not on her, nor was there a notebook. But the two detectives were able to spend less than an hour at the crime scene before being called away to another murder. Bosch referred to her as Snow White and was troubled by his inability to carry out a proper investigation. Once the civil unrest had settled, the investigation into her murder was taken over by the Riot Crimes Task Force, which failed to solve the case. Gary Harrod was one of the investigators that worked on the case later. She was very much missed by her brother and co-workers at Berlingske Tidende. ''The newspaper installed a brass plaque on the wall of the newsroom in her honor. Her brother constructed a web site in her memory. In 2012, the Chief of Police ordered a review of all unsolved murders from 1992, as part of a 20th anniversary of the riots. He knew that the press would be looking at these cases and he wanted to be prepared. Bosch requested the Jespersen case file, #9212-00346. Appearances * ''The Black Box Characters Category:Females Category:Journalists Category:Murder victims